News:

For the month of June we have a new character showcase. Please warmly welcome Pterano as he regales us with totally true stories of his exploits. The character showcase topic for this month can be found here.

Also please keep in mind that we have two active fanfiction prompts. If you would like to participate in the May prompt (which expires at the end of June) or the June prompt (which expires at the end of July) then please feel free to submit your stories. Details on the rules for the prompt challenge can be found here. The list of monthly prompts can be found here. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

The current fanart prompt is Comic, so get your ruler out and get creative!

If you want constructive criticism, you could have put more effort into the spikes and the head scales. Make the spikes more simmetrical, and make the head scales denser and the peaks of their curves more to the left (your left; all sides in this text are from your perspective, except "front" and "behind", which are from Sapphira's perspective). I see you already tried to redraw them to be more lopsided, but should have done even more so. I see you also tried to draw the nostril opening as realistic, which is commendable.

You can skip the next five paragraphs if you're done with your picture.

If you don't feel like drawing a new picture, you can try some shading, if you want, under the eye, around the nostril and around the horn. If we assume the light is coming from the left, then you should darken the skin immediately above the nostril,

a dark line that follows the upper edge of the upper eyelid and a lighter line that follows the lower edge of the upper eyelid,

a line at the front of the lower edge of the lower eyelid, which slightly widens as it goes follows the eyelid outline to the right, until you reach half of the eyelid, and then it widens and darkens faster towards the right end of the eyelid, becoming darkest directly behind it,

and you should darken the horn socket from right to left, a line at the bottom of the socket that becomes darker as it goes left around the socket, and then goes along the left edge of the socket, which should be as dark or darker than the back of the eye.

The darkest area should be, however, behind the right edge of the socket, since no light reaches that part. You can also darken the scales immediately below the check. You can also try connecting the dark areas with other dark lines.

Alright, enough being a smartass. For a person who doesn't practice much (or at all), you're not bad at all. You do put effort into shading and perspective, but since your brain is not trained you can't get it quite right (my brain is untrained too). Drawing is like sports. It's a frustrating line of repetitions with variations. I'm pretty much in that frustrating stage too, only slightly ahead of you. However, I've heard once you reach a certain level of skill, then drawing becomes like playing, you feel liberated and your brain starts noticing things, details it didn't notice before. And then real artistic development begins.

If you want to to reach that stage, good luck. If you want to just have fun with the occasional drawing of something you like, well, enjoy it.

I've been in a gryphon mood lately since reading the "Summer King Chronicals" and I decided to do some fanart.

This character is Elena, the mother of Kjorn, one of the main characters, and the mate of Sverin the Red King, the main antagonist in the first three books. She doesn't actually appear in the books because she died before the series takes place, but she is mentioned several times and is described as having gold feathers and blue eyes like her son.

Anyway, Elena is a major character in a fanfic I'm working on so I decided to do some fanart of her. Her mate, Sverin is the main character in the fanfic because I found him to be a very three dimensional, tragic, and sympathetic villain in the series. In the books it was Elena's tragic death that lead to him becoming a villain, but even as a villain he was still sympathetic and likable. I might do some fanart of him next. I found Sverin's backstory to be absolutely heart wrenching and it's easy to see why he turned out the way he did.

I didn't actually draw this picture. I just colored it but I wanted to share it anyway. This was a coloring page that was part of a Patreon reward. Anyway, this is another picture of Elena, the same gryphon that I did the picture of before. This is an official picture of the character done by Jess Owen, the author of the Summer King series.

Elena is an interesting character despite the fact that she never appears in the books. A character profile was released along with this picture. Elena has a rather sad story. She was the mother of Kjorn, one of the main characters (he's the baby shown in the picture). She was the mate to Sverin the red king, who served as the main antagonist in the series. She was basically the gryphon equivalent of a peasant at the bottom of the social totem poll but somehow she caught they eye of Sverin, who was still a prince at the time. Sverin lived under the rule of his cruel and abusive father, who despised Elena for her low social status and because she encouraged Sverin's rebellious nature.

There are several different species of gryphons in the books. Sverin and Elena belong to the Aesir species, who hunt primarily on land. There is another species called the Vanir, who hunt entirely from the sea. Anyway, there was a particularly harsh winter one year and prey was scarce. One of the Vanir gryphons, a gryphon called Ragna, tried to teach Elena to fish from the sea like the Vanir, but unfortunately she fell in and couldn't get back out. Ragna tried to save Elena, but because the Aesir are twice the size of the Vanir, she couldn't pull her back out and Elena drowned as a result.

Sverin, devastated by the loss of his mate, blamed Ranga and the Vanir for her death and basically began oppressing them under his rule, which led to the events of the series. He became cold-hearted and bitter and turned into a tyrant like his father. Despite his villainous nature though, Sverin remained a sympathetic character and he still had his redeeming qualities.

There's a much more complicated back story but I'm not going to go into the full details about it.

I haven't read the series but the picture looks pretty good. There is a good amount of details put in there, the feathers for example, and your coloring works rather well too. As for your coloring, it's quite effective if simple and suits a gryphon well. I don't know about the lore behind the character but the picture is drawn and colored nicely.